


Like a Rollin' Thunder Chasing the Wind

by MeghanAnna



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-07 00:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12222204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeghanAnna/pseuds/MeghanAnna
Summary: bff prompt: Clarke and Bellamy in a thunderstorm, Clarke is terrified of them and hates them and Bellamy thinks she's joking, teases her but realizes she isn't sand tries to comfort her when the power goes out.





	Like a Rollin' Thunder Chasing the Wind

“Um,” Bellamy says, tightening his grip on his front door as he looks down at Clarke. “Hi.”

Bellamy and Clarke have been neighbors off and on since they were children. Before Octavia’s dad left them and their mom moved them to the other side of town, they lived on the same street, just a few houses down from each other. Then, they ended up in the same dorm when he was a senior and she was a sophomore in college. And, just two months ago, she moved into his apartment building. But, he’s still surprised to see her standing at his door, a little after midnight.

“Hi,” she says, almost sheepishly. Clarke is a lot of things, but sheepish is not usually one of them.

“It’s late.”

“It’s _pouring_ ,” she says simply. He narrows his eyes at her and she smiles tightly up at him. She doesn’t offer any more of an explanation, but Bellamy does move aside for her to slip past him if she wants to. And she does.

As soon as the door closes behind them, a loud burst of thunder shakes their building and he notices her flinch. He doesn’t say anything, but he does turn a light on so they’re not cloaked in darkness in his hallway.

“You weren’t sleeping, were you?” she asks, nervous all of a sudden. It’s a fair question. It’s late, he’s in a pair of sweatpants with no shirt on, he’s wearing his glasses, and his hair is no doubt a mess from running his hands through it in frustration—over and over again.

“Not yet. I was pretending to grade midterms,” he tells her and she smiles. He nods toward his living room and she turns to walk into it, flinching again when his hand lands on the middle of her back. Something is setting her on edge tonight, so he removes his hand and flips on another light. “Everything okay, Clarke?”

“Yes,” she says—a lie. He’s known her a long time—longer than anyone else currently in his life, aside from Octavia. He knows when she’s lying. She never looks the person in the eye when she lies. She crosses one ankle behind the other and looks at the floor. Right now, she’s holding both hands behind her back and, for the first time, he notices that she’s in her pajamas, too. Worn flannel pants, an oversized tank top with their alma mater emblazoned over her chest, a bright pink sports bra visible.

“Sit down,” he offers and she does, still not looking at him. “Want a drink? I think I have some wine. I definitely have water.”

“Wine would be great,” she says quickly, finally looking at him again.

“You got it.”

Bellamy leaves her on his couch as he goes into his kitchen and pulls a bottle of pinot grigio out of his fridge. He’s not sure how long it’s been in there, but something tells him that she won’t mind if it’s a little old. Before he pours it, though, he quickly slips into his room and puts on a t-shirt that’s in a pile on the chair in the corner.

When he gets back to the living room, Clarke is curled into the corner of his couch, watching his television. He’d left it on an old episode of _Family Guy_ when he went to answer the door and it’s just rolling into another episode when he sits down. “You can change it,” he tells her, handing her one of the glasses he brought with him. “I know you hate this show.”

“You’re being really understanding considering I just showed up on your doorstep like a lost puppy ten minutes ago,” she says, more to her glass than to him.

“You caught me on a good night.”

Clarke looks at him and rolls her eyes, finally softening a bit. Her smile isn’t tense—like it had been before. It’s reminiscent of the smile he knew when they would end up at the same parties in college. He used to love watching her smile like that.

The memory of that, while he’s watching her now, strikes him. When she moved into his building two months ago, he didn’t remember the crush that had formed not long before he’d graduated. He didn’t remember that every weekend for three months, he’d find out which parties Clarke was going to so he could end up at the same ones, even if just for an hour. He didn’t remember how she’d find him to eat breakfast together—usually while running to class—most mornings.

And then his windows light up with a bolt of lightning and her smile disappears completely. He’s been watching the storm through his window for the past hour, so he’s not nearly as startled as she is. It catches him off guard, of course, because he was watching her and not the windows, but he can’t be feeling anywhere near as shocked as she looks.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks and she squeezes her eyes shut for a few seconds.

“I don’t like thunder and lightning,” she says slowly, opening her eyes. “I just… don’t like it.”

Bellamy can’t help but smile. He almost laughs. Clarke Griffin afraid of thunder and lightning? He just can’t imagine that. Clarke Griffin has never been afraid of anything. One time, when she was just seven or eight, she led a group of the neighborhood kids—including Bellamy—into the deep woods behind their houses in the middle of the night to prove that she’d seen a dead body back there. She’d just watched _Stand by Me_ with one of her older cousins for the first time. All she could think about was dead bodies.

They never found the body and it never came up again, but Bellamy remembers gripping Octavia’s hand so tightly and almost running back to his house every time they heard a sound. But Clarke? Clarke walked confidently into the woods—deeper and deeper—with just a weak flashlight guiding her. And this was after she successfully snuck out of her second-story bedroom and helped everyone else sneak out of theirs.

The thought makes him laugh finally and he feels her foot in his ribs. “Ow.” He winces and wine spills onto his shirt. He’s glad all he had was white wine.

“It’s not funny.” Her voice is deep and steady and it makes him really look at her. She’d just sounded so confident and strong, but he can see in her eyes that she means it. It’s not funny. She’s genuinely scared. And she came to him.

And now he’s making fun of her. “I’m sorry. Do you want to- I don’t know? Talk about it?”

Clarke looks at him then. _Really_ looks at him, like she’s trying to figure something out. She must not find what she’s looking for, though, because she asks, “You really don’t know, do you?”

He thinks about it for a second—about any spectacular storm that happened when they were kids or in college. But nothing comes to him. In fact, he distinctly remembers having to drag her out of a lake once when they were kids because it had started raining and they saw lightning strike behind them. “I don’t,” he admits and she sighs.

It’s not a sigh like she’s disappointed in him. It’s more like she’s exhausted, like she’s had to tell this story or live through it far too many times for her own liking.

“Well,” she starts, sitting up on the couch and moving a little closer to him as another bolt lights up his window, “You know my dad is dead.”

He does. He was at the funeral. It was right after he graduated college, but before he started working and moved into the city. He remembers how sudden it was—how it broke her that summer. “Yes.”

“It happened on a night like this,” she explains quietly and he sighs, running his hand through his hair again. “God, it was-“

“I get it,” he says quickly. “You don’t need to do this.”

He grabs her hand—tugging her tentatively toward him—and she falls into his side without a fight. He puts his glass of wine down on the table next to his couch and takes hers out of her hand to do the same. She shuffles closer then, really folding into him.

“I can deal with it during the day,” she tells him. “And it was great when Raven and I lived together. I didn’t even need to go anywhere for company, just to the living room or her bedroom. This is the first storm since I moved out and I didn’t even think about what it would be like when it happened again.”

“It worked out okay.” He shrugs, squeezing her shoulders. “And you didn’t even know I lived here.”

“Yeah,” she says, looking up at him. “It worked out okay.”

Without thinking, he kisses her on the forehead and she closes her eyes and leans into it. It feels so simple to linger there, with his lips against her skin. And when the thunder roars outside, it’s easier still to wrap his other arm around her and hold her impossibly closer.

And then it goes dark. Completely dark. And silent.

“Fuck.” Clarke groans and lets go of Bellamy to get up and pace. And then she promptly walks into his coffee table, cursing again.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, standing up to step in front of her. His eyes have started adjusting to the dark, but he still has a hard time reaching for her when he tries. “Just sit down,” he says once he’s finally got a grip on her elbow.

“I hate this,” she tells him, slowly. “I can’t do this tonight.”

“Clarke.” He’s trying to be as gentle as he can be, but he’s never been one for gentle. “Please.”

She plops down on his couch and he sits down next to her, watching her the best he can in the dark. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, looking down at her lap. “You didn’t sign up for this. All you did was open your door.”

“I don’t mind.” And he doesn’t. If she wasn’t on his couch right now, he would have gone straight to bed when the power went out. Sleep is great, but he doesn’t mind hanging out with Clarke. He’s glad he can help in any little way possible.

She curls herself around him again and he hugs her into his chest, brushing his fingers through her hair every so often. It only takes a few minutes until he starts to feel his eyelids droop. She feels heavier against him. It’s like they’re both falling asleep. She doesn’t even flinch when lightning strikes again. Or when the thunder rumbles a few seconds later. She sighs and folds her legs on top of his, but her breathing is calm and her hand is still against his chest.

Bellamy could get used to it, honestly. He missed her in the interim between college and her randomly moving into his building three years later. It’s been nice living near her again, running into her randomly and sharing takeout in her apartment.

This is the first time she’s been inside his apartment, though. She’s helped him carry groceries, but only as far as his front door. She’s always in a rush, but she’s still happy to help when she can. So, this is nice. He likes having her here. And he’s not even surprised to feel that familiar tug in his chest for her. It’s been years, but he remembers exactly how it feels to fall for Clarke Griffin. Maybe he’ll do something about it this time around.

And then she screams—this blood curdling, terrifying scream—and he’s not so sure he’s falling for her anymore. He might be a little afraid of her now.

“What’s wrong?” he asks and she catapults off of him.

“What the hell was that?” She’s looking left and right, but it’s too dark to see anything.

“What are you talking about, Clarke?”

He stands up with her and she swallows and takes a deep breath. “Something just _touched_ me.” Bellamy pulls his glasses off and rubs his eyes, waiting for her to elaborate. He’s so lost. “Like, something furry.”

Then he starts to laugh. “You mean, like a cat? My cat?”

“You have _a cat_?” she asks, sounding genuinely shocked. “Why didn’t I know you had a cat before it scared the shit out of me?”

“She doesn’t like people, so she probably stayed in my bedroom once she heard an unfamiliar voice,” he explains and she pushes him, starting to laugh herself. “And then it got dark and quiet, so she probably thought it was safe to come out of hiding.”

“I hate you and your stupid cat,” she says after a few seconds. Bellamy pulls her toward his bedroom, using his phone as a flashlight.

“My cat is awesome,” he argues as he bends over to check under the bed. “See, she’s awesome.”

Clarke bends down next to him to look under the bed and he can just barely see a smile spreading across her features. His cat _is_ awesome. She makes everyone smile. “She’s pretty cool, I guess,” she mumbles, getting down on her knees to get a closer look. “What’s her name?”

“Bella,” he answers immediately and only winces when Clarke starts laughing. “It’s not funny.”

“You and your cat have the same name,” she says, still laughing.

“I know we’ve only known each other for twenty years, but my name is Bella _my_.”

“You and your cat have the same name,” she says again, standing up just to throw herself onto his bed. She puts a hand over her mouth, but she’s still laughing at him.

“She already had the name when I adopted her. I felt bad changing it, so it stuck. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s cute,” Clarke says, finally sobering.

Bellamy points the light from his phone at her and she smiles brightly at him. It’s almost like she forgot about the thunder and lightning that sent her down there in the first place. Like she’s not that scared anymore.

Bellamy rolls his eyes and moves the light off her face as he sits down next to her. He lies back, too, and feels her looking at him. “What?” he asks, letting his head fall to the side so he can look back at her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They smile at each other easily and it feels so _nice_ to be there with her. They’ve been friends and neighbors and, sometimes, they’ve been nothing to one another. But they’ve been in each other’s lives for _most_ of their lives. Some of the best times in his life have been with her. Some of the worst times, too. He wants her to _keep_ being there.

“If I spent a night with you like this in college, I probably would have died. Did you know that I had a huge crush on you?” she asks him so suddenly and his breath catches in his throat, making him cough, which just makes her smile again. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“I didn’t, no,” he admits. “I had a huge thing for you. If I’d known, I would have made a move.”

“Too bad.” She hums and Bellamy snorts. And then her hand wraps around his between them and he can’t breathe again.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” he starts and she hums again, waiting for him to go on. He rolls onto his side first, so he can look down at her, and he’s so happy to see she’s smiling. “I definitely still have a huge thing for you.”

“Still?”

“Maybe it’s a new thing,” he admits, “but it feels like it never really went away.”

“Good.”

He starts to lean in, to finally get his lips on hers, but then he remembers what brought her to his apartment. “Are you okay?” he asks her, reaching up to brush her hair out of her face.

“I think it stopped,” she says, turning to look toward his windows. “Seriously, thank you for keeping me company and distracting me.”

“Anytime,” he promises. She smiles up at him, then she wraps her fingers in his hair and pulls him in for a kiss. _Finally._

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://bellamyfrecklefaceblake.tumblr.com)!


End file.
